Richard Herring is a comedian, writer and actor and is better known for his TV work with Stewart Lee, which includes Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard, Not Judy. Over the past 12 years, he has written and appeared in 15 shows for the Edinburgh Festival. It's Not The End Of The World is his fourth play at the Fringe and runs until 30 August.

Stewart Lee, 30, grew up in Solihull and studied English at Oxford University, where he met Richard Herring. They formed a comedy act, first performing at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1987. His solo work includes stand-up comedy for Channel 5, and being script editor for Channel 4's `Harry Hill' show. He lives in Finsbury Park, north London,

As every classic partnership from Laurel and Hardy to Morecambe and Wise has shown, the key to a successful double-act is affectionate bickering. While obviously not in the class of the aforementioned, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring have the verbal sparring down to a tee. "We make a foolish proposition and take it to its most ridiculous extreme," says Herring. "You don't need a lot of jokes. A lot of our stuff is about the logic of arguments and the way people who know each other far too well argue with each other. In one routine, I actually started to cry." The pair are warming up for their new BBC2 series of This Morning with Richard, Not Judy.

Bib and Bob (played by those two incorrigible scallywags, Jerry Sadowitz above, and Logan Murray) aim to shock - and generally they succeed all too well. They have been known to bound on stage promising sketches "which make Nazi war-time atrocities seem like Mr Kipling cakes". They have fulfilled that promise by performing unprintably rude routines about such subjects as George Michael, Gary Glitter, cancer, child abuse, homelessness, Asian shopkeepers, IRA terrorists, Jehovah's Witnesses and piles. They have even risked gags on the taboo subject of the death of Princess Diana.

Stan and Ollie have become victims of their own slapstick cliches. Now, 70 years after their first film, a new generation of funny men is acknowledging the original genius of Laurel and Hardy. By James Rampton

At Last, the Edinburgh Fringe is under way, and we don't have to read any more of the trend-spotting articles which preceded it. One of these stated that there were 15 per cent fewer comedy shows on than there were last year, but if the posters that wallpaper the city's pubs are any indication, reports of a comedy drought have been exaggerated. There's no need for the UN to helicopter any emergency stand-ups in from London just yet.